The world's best viewing platforms

How well you can appreciate a landscape depends on your
point of view. But for anyone with a head for heights, sightseeing
is getting easier, says Stephen Wood.

There was a sudden surge of railway-building in Switzerland at
the end of the 19th century. New lines climbed out of the valleys
in different directions, but many of them had a common objective: a
viewpoint. The raison d'être of the Jungfrau railway was the
plateau it accessed; day-trippers went to Zermatt purely for a view
of the Matterhorn; the prize at the top of the Rochers-de-Naye line
was a panorama of Lake Geneva and its surrounding peaks.

The jet age - when entire mountain ranges could be admired from
30,000ft - was not kind to these railways. The Rochers-de-Naye line
had to find a new attraction, and created a marmot exhibit up on
the mountain. Now people ride the train to get close-ups of a cute
rodent.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, enjoying the
view has made a comeback as a leisure activity. The facilities
recently erected in the Alps - with Austria leading the way this
time - have a new name: viewing platforms. In the main they serve
the traditional function, of providing sedentary adventurers with
locations from which to enjoy mountain panoramas. But increasingly
there is now added spice for the viewer, even a hint of the 'thrill
sport'.

The Grand Canyon Skywalk (pictured), opened in 2007,
juts out from the canyonside, and visitors walk around a
semicircular glass gangway. The same vertigo-inducing trick -
cutting the ground from under visitors' feet - is played at
Chicago's Willis Tower, Blackpool's venerable tower (opened,
incidentally, in 1894) and on Tianmen Mountain in China. The
Chinese walkway is a pedestrian version of the via ferrata, an
'assisted' mountain route with fixed cables; other viewpoints offer
experiences akin to aircraft 'wing walking', or hi-tech versions of
a canopy walk.

What's going on here? It's virtual danger. Many of these
experiences are quite scary; but having been run past Health &
Safety, they are not as dangerous as they look. In the extreme
version of the SkyWalk you jump off New Zealand's tallest man-made
structure. It's quite safe, though. You are attached to a
wire.